Dell Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme

Pros

Ruggedized to withstand extreme conditions.
Touch screen is readable in bright sunlight.
Screen flips to facilitate touch use.
Hard drive and battery are removable without tools.
Good battery life.
No bloatware.

Cons

Bottom Line

The Dell Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme is a tough hybrid-convertible laptop with a pivoting screen that gives it tablet-like functionality.
It will serve you well if your work takes you to extreme environments.

28 Oct 2014

Dell's Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme ($4,729, as tested) is a fully ruggedized hybrid-convertible laptop that can keep you connected to your data if you're visiting a remote village in the Andes, or are a member of the National Guard calling in a food airdrop after an earthquake. This tough hybrid has all-day battery performance, can survive drops from as high as six feet, and can get you on Skype in the middle of a blizzard. If you work in extreme environments, the Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme should be on your short list.

Design and Features While the 11.6-inch screen makes is more suited to an ultraportable, the Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme is only diminutive when compared with the larger Dell Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme. The laptop measures about 1.6 by 12.25 by 8.75 inches (HWD) and weighs 6.07 pounds. The chassis is fully certified to MIL-STD-810G and IP65 standards. This means it can be dropped from 6 feet, and resist blowing sand, snow, and water. You can freeze, thaw, and bake it in the sun for days on end. It's certainly sturdy enough to survive remote corporate offices, fire and rescue work, or news gathering far from the office parks of suburbia.

The press-latch doors on the I/O ports help earn the laptop that IP65 rating. They are sealed against dust and water, and they can survive any poking with tools. The doors have locking latches, but open easily. You'll find a good selection of ports behind the doors, including an Ethernet jack, an HDMI port, a headset jack, a serial port, a SIM Card slot, a USB 2.0 port, a USB 3.0 port, and a VGA port. There's an ExpressCard reader and a Smart card reader sharing a door, as well as an NFC sensor built into the palm rest. Our review unit is equipped with GPS and 4G LTE, which is an option otherwise. There's also 802.11ac Wi-Fi, which lets you connect to just about any wireless LAN. A standardized dock on the bottom of the laptop lets you use the same portable or deskbound docking mounts as the Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme.

At 1,366 by 768, the 11.6-inch screen's resolution is somewhat low in comparison to other current laptops. The small physical screen size also means that there's a wide bezel surrounding the display. We understand that there are limitations inherent in a ruggedized design, but that's still a lot of unused space around the actual screen. The display flips around on its midpoint like on the Dell XPS 12, which lets you use the Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme like a (very heavy) tablet. The Windows Start button is permanently attached to the part of the screen that moves, so the system is fully functional even with the screen facing out.

The five-point, resistive touch screen is more accurate than the single-point touch screen on the Dell Latitude 14 Rugged, and you can also use it while wearing gloves. The display is quite bright, and it can even be used in direct sunlight. The system's touchpad is also resistive and works with gloves. In case that's not enough input methods, there's a telescoping stylus stored in the side of the laptop, under the backlit keyboard, which is sealed against dust and liquids.

The system has 8GB of memory and a 256GB solid-state drive solid-state drive (SSD) module. You can swap out the SSD for another drive module, so it's possible to share a single system among several users with different operating systems and application sets. The battery is removable, sealed in its own compartment on the bottom of the chassis. There are no extra preloaded apps, aside from a few Dell utilities and the standard set of Windows 8.1 Pro apps. Dell includes a 3-year warranty with mail-in service for the full duration.

PerformanceInside, there's a 1.9GHz Intel Core i5-4300U ultrabook-class processor with Intel HD Graphics 4400. The Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme earned a good score of 3,061 points on the PCMark 8 Work Conventional test, which puts it ahead of the HP EliteBook Folio 1040 G1, but a smidge behind the Dell Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme and the Dell Precision M2800 mobile workstation. The system was also a bit slower on the Handbrake video encoder test at 6 minutes 19 seconds, which is roughly twice as long as the HP 1040 G1.

Battery life is very good, at 8 hours 44 minutes on our rundown test. That's a few hours shorter than the Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme, but it handily beats the Acer Aspire V7-482PG-6629, the Dell Precision M2800, and the HP 1040 G1. It is sufficient to say that the system will last all day on a single charge.

The Dell Latitude 12 Rugged Extreme is certainly a good choice for the mobile user who cares more about surviving dust storms than surviving suburbia. It can handle most, if not all, the abuse directed toward it, short of a direct hit from small arms fire. The Dell Latitude 14 Rugged Extreme has a larger screen, better connectivity options, and will serve a wider variety of users better, so it remains our Editors' Choice for rugged laptops. That said, the Latitude 12 would work if you need a more versatile touch screen in a more compact package.

About the Author

Joel Santo Domingo is the Lead Analyst for the Desktops team at PC Magazine Labs. He joined PC Magazine in 2000, after 7 years of IT work for companies large and small. His background includes managing mobile, desktop and network infrastructure on both the Macintosh and Windows platforms. Joel is proof that you can escape the retail grind: he wore a yellow polo shirt early in his tech career. Along the way Joel earned a BA in English Literature and an MBA in Information Technology from Rutgers University. He is responsible for overseeing PC Labs testing, as well as formulating new test methodologies for the PC Hardware team. Along with ... See Full Bio